"grimstoner" a user on the We Got Served forums is developing a uTorrent add-in for WHS2011.
Once installed you will just need to point it to your uTorrent installation with username and password and the add-in will run as a service.
Cant wait for this to be available – More details are available from here.
Have a question or problem?
I can’t guarantee an answer, but I’ll try. Click “ask a question” above!
I am back!!! I have been gone unexpectedly now for 5 weeks to job search and I can confirm that is now over and I am back for the foreseeable future. Some major talking points while I have been gone, WHS 2011 released in beta which is great news, also some excellent addin news about DE in the form of an addin from third parties. It would seem that there is going to be three different addins available offering the DE function from DataCore Software, Drive Bender and StableBit, in my eyes competition is a good thing and it may be that Microsoft did us all a favor, so watch this space.
David Asks:
I am a WHSv1 user, and I have been interested in Home Theatre PCs for a while. I don’t want to have 2 PCs on 24-7, so I thought about trying to get tuners into a WHS box. But since true MS Windows Media Center features are not found in v1 or WHS2011, I was thinking about building a Windows7 Home Theatre PC instead. With Drive Extender gone from the 2011 product, is it possible to set up WHS2011 in a Virtual Machine on the Home Theatre PC to do client backups? What would you recommend for RAID, partitioning, backups, and media sharing?
This is an excellent idea, this is certainly something I would do myself, if I was running Media Centre PC’s. The only pit fall I can foresee is a bandwidth problem; imagine you’re streaming a DVD from another PC in the home, direct to the media center with WHS 2011 hosted on, then another machine in the home starts its backup, then maybe another machine starts streaming a movie from the media center you are watching your DVD, It could end in chaos.
I certainly think it’s a bold idea and if planned correctly could be a fruitful one. My advice on hardware would be this:
System: 120GB SSD
Data drives: 5 x 2TB HDD (Raid 5)
Network: 1Gbps
CPU: Core i5
RAM: 8GB
Optical Media Drive: Blu-ray
The best way to set this up would be install the Windows 7 OS on the SSD drive, install Virtual PC and install WHS 2011 into an expanding VHD, then add a second VHD as the data drive setting the size limit to around 9TB. This way you have 1TB in the pool for the expanding WHS 2011 OS drive and a place to put the recorded media from the Media Center.
This is a great idea and one I would like to share with the rest of the community while it is being built, let me know how you are getting on at each stage and we will follow the progress here at MSwhs.com
Jerry Asks:
Now that it is a definite that DE will not be in WHS 2011, what hardware build do you recommend for a DIY builder? I am especially interested in setting up a RAID 5 array. Are any of the Motherboards with RAID on-board good?
Any motherboard with RAID ability will certainly do a job and should always be sufficient for any home user, but if you really want to go that step further a dedicated RAID card is the other way to go. RAID cards aren’t normally very cheap for what they are and a good one will certainly set you back around £80/$120.
Cheap RAID cards at around £30/$45 are excellent for adding additional SATA ports to a machine if you find yourself running out.
Thomas Asks:
Ok, maybe I missed it, but where are the inputs/comments about whether or not you retain all of your current folders, add ins, and data on your current Windows Home Server HDDs, if you elect to try the new Windows Home Server 2011? Do you lose it all and have to start over, etc, etc. Also, is there a recovery feature that allows you to go back to the old Windows Home Server settings if you so desire or when the beta expires???
First of all let me stress that any beta software shouldn’t be used in a production environment, this is software that has been released for testing purposes only and WHS 2011 is no different. I also need to stress there is no downgrade path or upgrade path for that matter, if you install WHS 2011 the only way to go back to WHS v1 is to do a fresh install, which means formatting your data drives and hence losing all data on them.
If you want to go from WHSv1 to WHS 2011 you will need to backup all your data then install WHSv1 a fresh. If you come to the end of the beta and you have data within WHS 2011 then you need to back it up and move it out of WHS 2011 as you will have a hard time getting it back if it expires.
All settings, addins and customizations will be lost once the beta expires.
I know I haven’t been able to answer everyone’s questions, so those that haven’t been answered why not post them in the forum.
Have a question or problem?
I can’t guarantee an answer, but I’ll try. Click “ask a question” above!
Written by
Matthew Glover
www.matthewglover.co.uk
We told you back in early February about Drive Extender functionality coming to WHS2011 courtesy of the add-in StableBit DrivePool ad since then there has been 2 further announcements from 2 different companies. First up is Drive Bender which is due its first beta release today.
Similar in features to StableBit DrivePool the difference with Drive Bender is that it will be available for all versions of Windows P and above bringing DE functionality to Vista, Windows 7 and even more platforms.
Second on the list is DataCore software who will be providing an affordable storage solution for Windows Home Server:
“DataCore looks forward to bringing enterprise-class storage to Windows home and small business users. The combination of DataCore with both Windows Home Server and Windows Small Business Server 2011 will help you grow and protect your storage as your needs grow.”
– Carlos M. Carreras, VP of Alliances and Business Development
Drive Extender favorably known as DE may be gone from WHS2011 but its functionality is certainly not dead. We look forward to the first beta releases of these add-ins, and will test and publish our findings
Windows guru Paul Thurrott is all for WHS2011 after originally adopting a "wait and see" approach.
After DE was pulled from Home Server Paul asked himself if he could ever recommend a version of WHS in which Drive Extender was removed and would he also use such a product himself.
Well a few months on and now Paul has decided that he will be using WHS2011 for his own home needs and also will continue recommending it to others.
Paul then tells us what’s new in 2011 and tells us that although Drive Extender will be missed, it is replaceable.
A great read which you can find here.
Andreas M developer of popular add-ins Advanced Admin Console and Update History has just announced that the public beta of Advanced Admin Console 2011 for WHS2011 is just around the corner.
The bits will be available for download from this site (http://www.home-server-addins.com) later this week. Everyone who contacted me regarding the beta test will be notified via email. Stay tuned!
We will let you know here at MSWHS.com when it becomes available.
Version 0.5.4 of Advanced Admin Console is available for download.
This maintenance release which fixes a number of minor bugs and one major bug in the update discovery mechanism which prevented Japanese and Chinese users from being notified when an update was available. In addition, a possible conflict with other AddIns has been resolved.
This update improves the stability and reliability of the Advanced Admin Console and the developer Andreas M recommends that all current users upgrade to this latest release.
Important: Before installing the new release, please UNINSTALL any previous version.
You can download the add-in Advanced Admin Console from here.
One Windows Home Server user says good bye and good riddance to Drive Extender (DE).
An interesting read from a WHS enthusiast on why they are happy DE is no longer, which you can read here.
This weeks Home Server Show podcast is a mammoth one. As well as the weeks Home Server news the BYOB Podcast crew join the guys to talk storage, RAID and backups.
You can catch episode 124 here.
DVBLogic have just released version 3.2.1 of DVBLink.
This latest version fixed some streaming issues on both the IPad and the IPhone and now has an option to backup and restore the channel settings amongst many other fixes and enhancements:
General
DVBLink TVSource
DVBLink Server Network Pack
More details on this release including important installation information is available from here.
CloudBerry Backup for WHS has an update available.
Version 2.0 enables you to:
More information on these 2 new features is available from here.
